Digital mobility - reimagining our places and spaces in the new normalHow Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Changed the Future?

The sudden halt of mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic has become an important accelerator of digitalization. People have reconnected in the digital world from home while the physical world has been unsafe. During the lockdown, communication without social platforms, entertainment without streaming and shopping without ordering online would have been impossible. At work, companies have relied on digital platforms to enable them to expand their office environments into employees’ homes. Digitally reconnecting with employees, suppliers and customers has allowed companies to establish an ad-hoc resilience that many would have thought impossible before.

This leap in digitalization is changing our perception of mobility, leading to a broader reimagination of how we view places and spaces in the physical world. Households, companies, and entire communities are now rethinking how they work, shop and live in light of these newly established alternatives.

COVID-19 had immediate, significant impacts on tourism, transport and business travel. With mobility down by 80% in urban areas and close to zero at many airports, entire industries have had to be rescued by government support. Some of these challenges will last for years or even become permanent. The airline industry expects higher costs from social distancing, a slow recovery of tourism, a permanent cut-back of business travel in favor of telecommuting and a general slowdown of globalization in favor of shorter supply chains. Major airlines are therefore planning reductions of their fleets and workforce by up to one third.

Fortunately, government support programs are buffering the impact of the crisis in most countries, to avoid the most extreme doomsday scenarios. Given time, tourism will almost certainly make a comeback. Increasingly digital lifestyles will increase the interest in seeing and experiencing foreign countries and catching up with distant relatives. Business travel will be essential, especially when new contacts need to be solidified and trusted relationships built, while globalization with shorter supply chains will require more maintenance at diverse locations. Urban mobility, on the other hand, will change in far more complex ways than initially expected.